[Ghoulish Delight]

I don't mind the winners voicing their opinions. Their speech is their time, and if that's what they want to use it for, no worries on my end. I just get peeved when voting is done based on political motives.

Sure, political impact is one valid consideration, but sometimes it's given too much weight. I felt that the case for West Bank Story. It was good, but in terms of its quality as a film, I thought it was a class below the other nominees in the category. Far enough below that even having a good political message wasn't enough for me to consider it the best (and I did like the message of the film). If I were a voting member, I'd personally try to start with how well a film makes its point, and only turn to whether I think that point was particularly important or impactful as a means to create separation between entries that are too close quality-wise to decide between.

Of course, I say that now when I have no actual voting power. Hard to say how I'd feel actually given the authority to be involved in that decision.

Speaking of which, who was it that pointed out that the Oscars are still the awards show, the one that everyone is waiting for through the whole award season? Makes you realize what an amazing entity the Academy is. I mean, they just kinda gave themselves that power. Before the academy existed, I'm sure there were awards here and there, and small, disparate groups of people who would discuss and decide what their favorites were.

But somewhere along the way, some people decided, "You know what, screw this. We're going to create a group of people and just decide which movie's the best. And we're going to get the right people to give ourselves the clout to do that and everyone's gonna listen." At least, that's how I picture it. Maybe it happened more naturally, that the people with the clout gravitated towards each other and their combined clout grew. But either way, it really says something that, even though there's always disagreement with their choices, the Academy has managed to remain THE source to watch, even if you're watching so you can disagree with them. And in the end, it's all just because they have the attitude and resources to present themselves as such.